Good advice, Dan. Why ruin a perfectly good relationship by worrying about what may or may not happen in a quarter of a century?
(Out of curiosity, is LW male or female? I feel like the tone differs a little depending...I assume we're hearing from a guy, but I can't be sure.)

@1: I thought it was a woman. No idea why I thought that.

I thought LATE was a woman too - despite the ass fucking comment. I don't know why either.

LATE is a gay man.

It seemed clear to me that the lw was a man. the term "fuckbudy" and all that.

Hey LATE, congratulations to you and your boyfriend on finding love. In my experience, it's a rare and precious commodity.
Nurture it as long as it lasts and best of luck to the two of you.

I'll be interested to see how the comments shake out on this letter.

LATE is 50 years old, is 20 years older than his partner, and they have been together for 7 years. That means that LATE was 43 when his partner was 23. That's means LATE's boyfriend was about three years older than the mid-20s year old woman with a husband who was in his mid-40s that had been together for seven years.

Lots of commenters decried that age gap and wondered were that woman's family was at the start of that relationship. This age gap could be four or five years wider.

@6 This isn't a double standard; the woman was miserable so it was a totally different story. If she'd written to say how hot and great everything was, I don't think anyone would have found fault with that.

There are no guarantees in life except death and taxes.
So LW, enjoy yourself, and stop worrying. He loves you now, and now is all you got. I don't think the Catholics see it that way.. God and all.

Great advice :) Love is such a blessing, don't push it away because of "what ifs."

SA..@6. In the hetero couple, the wife was about 18-19 yrs old when they got together. She was still a girl in my reckoning.
And I do think SS is different. The LW has already said they have talked about this age difference as a problem. Do you think many hetero men talk to their 20 odd yr younger wife about this?
I doubt it. A hetero man would expect his wife to stay on long past his use by date.

IF you both live long lives, boyfriend might have a 20-year window at the end without you. But that's a big "if." Enjoy what you've got while you've got it. Nobody is promised tomorrow.

Ms. Lava, My husband is 20 yrs older. We have been together 16 yrs and have talked about the age difference several times, and will likely continue to talk about things as they change for both of us. Everyone is right saying there are no guarantees in life. Currently, I am having some health issues and he is the one who is healthier and has a stronger libido. People aren't things, they don't have a use by date. And it isn't nice to generalize about what "a hetero man would do" since there are many ways of handling things, and being male and heterosexual doesn't say much about a persons character, ability to make rational decisions, and how GGG they are likely to be when the chips are down.

You are right @ 12. tachycardia, people are not things,
Yet given the amount of men who discard their older wives for younger ones, I'd say for some there is a use by date.
Good to hear you guys talk about it. Has he offered for you to find a fuckbuddy if and when it might be appropriate, like this LW has done?

Breaking up for no other reason that what the future “might” bring seems foolish.

There you go. You just gave yourself excellent advice.

It would be interesting to see a column going into why and how markers of sex and orientation are edited out of letters.

Given Mr Savage's penchant for Expert Witnesses, I'm a little surprised he never consults one for a question of this sort. There are certainly plenty of intergenerational MM couples, and with larger gaps than twenty years. What a pity Mr Savage isn't chums with, say, Mr Fry - now he would be an Expert Witness who'd deserve all the hosannas Mr Savage bestows upon lesser mortals, and he's given up Twitter into the bargain.

Taking Yes for an answer is a good starting point, especially for a couple with such good luck in how well matched they are in terms of tastes and frequency. My own experience suggests that, when possible, it's a kindness for the older partner to see the ride all the way through.

Nocute: A woman might use the term "fuckbuddy" (I certainly have). But her primary concern would probably not be that her ass continue to get fucked in her old age.

I too thought LW was a woman; not sure why. The "old ass" comment just struck me as the manner of speech, not literally referring to anal sex. Thanks Dan for jumping in to clarify right away that it was a man.

I feel like technically the advice ought to be the same regardless of the genders but it does seem that gay couples on the whole do a better job of navigating non-monogamy, should the couple decide to try that down the line.

And... am I exposing some subconscious gender essentialism if I say that it just *feels* less likely that a hetero 30 year old guy would stay with a woman 20 years older? I felt a little relieved for the LW (for the potential longevity of their relationship) when Dan said he was a gay man.

Also, if LW were a woman, I'd have expected more hand-wringing about her being past the age where she could bear his children.

@18 - good point.

@10/LavaGirl: In the hetero couple, the wife was about 18-19 yrs old when they got together. We don't know that. We know she said she was in her mid-20s that could be 25 or 26 or 27. And she said they had been together for 7 years, which could be 6.75 years. So she could have been 20 when they got together, or about 3 years younger than LATE. Obviously assuming she is 18 makes for a more compelling argument, whereas 20 which is equally plausible makes it a closer case.

In any event, the age difference issue - and specifically what her parents did at the start of the relationship - wasn't predicated on her unhappiness (@7/jayde), but their age difference.

Do you think many hetero men talk to their 20 odd yr younger wife about this? I doubt it.
Most people I know do discuss age differences, so I'm not sure why you think that wouldn't come up in this circumstance too.

@BiDanFan: The voice just felt male to me. Then I saw the word "fuckbuddy," which I'm far more inclined to hear used by gay men than straight, bi or lesbian women. I don't mean they can't and don't use it; I mean that typically if I hear it, I think "gay man." Everyone else was allowed to pick up on their cues, too.
I read it, started writing my comment, got distracted by (actual) work for a moment, and by the time I posted, Dan had already clarified.

Ultimately, I would think this issue/concern would be the same no matter the sex/gender/orientation of the people involved.

@13 So you have to be open to non-monogamy if you're a straight older male with a younger woman?

I've dated much younger, and of course it is something I was aware of, with compassion, for the potential downsides to the young lady in being tied to an older guy like me. Just because I'm not down with my lady friend fucking other guys doesn't mean I'm unaware or insensitive to the potential downsides of the age gap. If anything, I had to suppress feelings of guilt so as not to be playing some passive-aggressive game of needing too much reassurance.

If anyone wanted to project what is typical in a youth-obsessed culture, I'd expect the younger of the two to worry that the older would lose interest.

Since these two seem to have bonded on every level, I would expect age and looks not to be an issue as they change. I think most see their partners through rose colored glasses that allow them to see each other as they were when the first met even though the reality is that they have aged.

I'd be much less worried about what might happen after 25 years compared to the fun to be had for the next 25, plus the time already spent.

By all means, take yes for the answer.

Stop worrying about a problem that probably won't ever come up. Or at least just enjoy your life now and deal with issues as they arise. Life is too short to be worried about something that may never happen.

Too bad LATE isn't a woman - a 20 year age gap could be just right in terms of them both kicking the can at roughly the same time, given women tend to live longer.. (although not THAT much longer...)

Also, single men rejoice, if you can make it to 80, you get the retirement home to yourself!

My GF and I have the exact same age difference. She's 26 and I'm 46 (also female) and we've been together for 3 years and plan to stay that way for as long as possible. Although she gets super annoyed when I tell her she's probably going to change my diapers one day...

This is changing now that there are less physical labor jobs in the U.S., but men generally die 15-20 years before women, leaving them alone to rot in their (generally perceived as) unfuckable states until they die alone. So this great, you're doing it right! I think you have a great situation. I'm seven years older than my man and I'm hoping we can die around the same time.

I think the reason many people thought LW is a woman is because the headline on Facebook said "she"

What @sunnybunny1269 said. May want to fix the face books, stranger / Dan savage staff!

I'm a 42-year-old woman and my boyfriend of 2 years is 27...I've had similar concerns about the longevity of our relationship...but a failed marriage with someone my own age followed by a long-term relationship with another man my age who left me for someone else has changed my perspective of things..."love him and let him love you" pretty much sums it up.

@16 It seems entirely possible that a 50 year old woman would put that as a primary concern, and use the term fuckbuddy

Well, that is the correct advice and I have something in my eye now.

@13 Usually when I hear of men discarding their older wives for someone younger, the wife is the same age. If a woman in her 30s decides to date/marry a guy in his 50s or even older, she likely knows she is expected to stick around, that it might be a sexually unbalanced relationship (I'm totally thinking Hugh Hefner, and stereotypical "trophy wife" situations here), and exactly what she is getting in return in terms of status, wealth, etc. So it is still unfair to pin it all on the man. This isn't my position though. To answer your question, no he had not offered for me to have a fuckbuddy. We have discussed the possibility of an open relationship if one of us becomes sexually incapacitated, and he was very understanding of the one time I went outside of our marriage during a very complicated situation where he was refusing me sex, someone else was trying to take sexual advantage (that person ended up pleading no contest to a lesser charge of battery), and I really needed to restore bodily autonomy. While I have never been jealous or possessive, over the course of our relationship he has mellowed out quite a bit, either due to age and maturity, or just changing circumstances. At this point, things that were hard limits are maybes, so I think it would be fair to say that we deal with things as they come up. It is very different discussing the possibility of non-monogamy when it is theoretical at the beginning of a relationship, versus many years into a relationship when you have had time to develop trust, good communication skills, security, and confidence in your relationship, and you have a specific situation in front of you. Imo, the ability to adapt to life's challenges and face them as a team is the primary element of a good relationship. As long as both people know they are on the same team, most other things can be worked out.

I assumed LW was female because self-sabotage and bogus notions of Permanent Monogamy seem to be female defaults.

I'm (thus far) a Gold Star older woman's man. No 20 year gaps, and at 60 that seems unlikely. Eight years with my first lover, who sandbagged the relationship partly because of that. Twelve with my spouse a decade and a half later. Just a year and a half with my most recent ex.

These were mostly just accidents of connection. Because we WEREN'T on the hetero-normal fast track, we actually got to KNOW each other like real people

If LW's boyfriend was X years above or below 50, would he be panicking about 25 years from now? Every relationship is temporary. Even if you're buried in the same crypt, you'll have gone through changes that make a different relationship by that time.